ENDING WITH A LINE FROM LEAR

   I will try to remember. It was light.
   It was also dark, in the grave. I could feel
   how dark it was, how black it would be
   without my father. When he was gone.
   But he was not gone, not yet. He was only
   a corpse, and I could still touch him
   that afternoon. Earlier the same afternoon.
   This is the one thing that scares me:
   losing my father. I don't want him to go.
   I am a young man. I will never be older.
   I am wearing a tie and a watch. The sky,
   gray, hangs over everything. Today
   the sky has no curve to it. and no end.

   He is deep into his mission. He has business
   to attend to. He wears a tie but no watch.
   I will skip a lot of what happens next.
   Then the moment comes. Everything, everything
   has been said, and the wheels start to turn.
   They roll, the straps unwind, and the coffin
   begins to descend. Into the awful damp.
   Into the black center of the earth. I
   am being left behind. The center of my body
   sinks down into the cold fire of the grave.
   But still my feet stand on top of the dirt.
   My father's grave. I will never again.
   Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.